FOY-er (but I don't use it -- I say entryway or some other term. If I knew I was around people who did, I might try "foy-ay," but I'd probably feel awkward.)buh-FAYOr-DERV(S)I don't say crudite because I don't know how it's said.Bal-AY (we were talking about how Billy Elliot's dad always something that sounds more like a single syllable "BOLLY" to our American ears just last night!)

To add another to the mix:ANT (though some other people's parents' sisters just seem more like AUuunts than my dear aunts, and it's AUN-tee, not ANT-ee for "auntie").

I would say foy-yay (Canada). Although it is mostly fancy houses and businesses that have foyers here. If you live in a regular house, you just have an entrance/front hall.

I say it that way too, also Canada. However, I consider the term to be fairly interchangeable whether referring to a small house, mansion, office building etc. But generally for a commercial building I would say "lobby".

As an aside - I do remember "entrance hall" being a common term in the 1960s for fairly newly-built homes. Quite often, these were basement-entry homes - the entrance-level would include the rec room, perhaps a den, second bathroom and laundry room. Upstairs was the main living area. But overall, these entrance-halls were huge and they only really had to accommodate a coat-closet. Lots of wasted space....

I say "FOY-er," and it is a word I use on occasion. I can't recall if I've used it to refer to a house -- the last time I lived in one with any sort of space that could possibly be called a foyer was about 10 years ago.

For a few decades after WWII, it seemed to be pretty common to build houses such that the front door opened onto the living room (or at least it seems that way based on houses of that era that are still around). More recently, I've seen more newer homes that actually do have an entrance room or area of some sort, but there are probably just as many that are so open-planned that it's not really a discrete space.

And actually, now that I think about it, I'm inclined to use the term "front hall" for a house that has some sort of discrete entryway space. That could be because that space in the house I grew up in really was more of a hallway than an entrance way. We rarely used the front door, and instead used the side door that opened into the living room. Thus, the room that the front door opened onto functioned primarily as a pathway between the living room and the den.

Now, of course, my "front hall" is a 2 foot by 2 foot patch of linoleum in my living room, with nothing else to distinguish it from the rest of the room. I rather miss having a separate entryway, but them's the breaks when you live in an apartment (or so it seems).

I grew up hearing it as "foy-yay" in my house and "foy-er" everywhere else in town. As a result, I've just learned to call it "the front hall" instead There are actually several words I avoid because of this issue - I point-blank refused to call our chaise lounge/lounge anything at all because "chase lounge" sounded like I didn't know any better but "shez lonjj" sounded like I was trying to be pretentious (and nobody would know what I meant anyway). Apparently both are correct in the US, but I finally ended up calling it "the chase" because that's what DH and Babybartfast call it.